Below the Tree Line Page 22

  “Maybe.”

  He turned around. “Maybe perfect?”

  “No, I mean someone out walking. I’m sure the meal will be perfect. It always is.”

  “What a great pair we make. I can cook and you can fix a roof.”

  Felicity sat crosslegged on the bed and rested her hands on Jeremy’s naked back. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him watching her, but then he closed his eyes and she did too, sinking deep inside until the only reality was heat. After a while—she couldn’t have said how long—she felt her fingers slacken and her knuckles rise. She drew her hands into her lap and let her breathing return to normal. Jeremy shifted and turned onto his side before sitting up. She could feel him watching her but he didn’t touch her. She appreciated that. He let her return at her own pace.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “You tell me.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Your lips are burning.”

  She shrugged. “It is what it is.” She uncrossed her legs and swung around to sit on the edge of the bed, leaving him room to slide off beside her. “You tore something bad but it seems okay now.”

  “Thanks to you.” He pushed himself off the bed and looked around for his clothes.

  Felicity leaned back on a pillow and watched Jeremy dress, then glanced at the clock. “It’s late. I could be asleep before you get home.”

  He smiled at her in the mirror as he buttoned his shirt. “How’s the fostering going?”

  “You mean Shadow?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “He’s living up to his name. He follows me everywhere if I let him.” She slid off the bed and pulled on a pair of sweats and a jersey.

  “You mean if I opened the door I’d trip over him?”

  “Possibly.”

  Jeremy reached over to the bedroom doorknob and turned. He pulled open the door and there sat Shadow, staring into the room. “God, that dog looks forlorn.”

  Felicity called him in and he trotted circumspectly past Jeremy. “I take him with me into the woods sometimes, and he seems okay with it. He’s getting the hang of being a farm dog.”

  “Think you’ll keep him?”

  “Maybe. He probably should have a family with children, someone to play with. Still, I’m fond of him.” She began to coo to the dog.

  “Take him with you when you go look at the blind,” Jeremy said.

  Felicity started.

  “You were planning on doing that, weren’t you?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “And you told me he could track.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and smiled. “But what you’re really hoping is he’ll be a guard dog, just in case I come across someone I shouldn’t.”

  Jeremy picked up his keys and slipped them into his pocket as he turned to her. “I’m never sure about watching you head off to do something that we both know could be dangerous. I don’t want to tell you to stop because I know what that sounds like.”

  “I’m not going to end up dead, Jeremy.” She climbed off the bed and walked over to him and reached for his hands. She held them in front of her.

  “Three people, Lissie. Three.”

  “I know.” She slipped into his embrace.

  Twenty-Four

  The next morning Felicity was on the road, driving the short distance to the blind, by nine o’clock. She had decided not to take Shadow with her because she didn’t yet trust her ability to control him in unfamiliar environments. She’d left him at home with his muzzle rubbing against the front window.

  Although she worried she’d been neglecting her chores ever since Clarissa Jenkins’s car crash, she couldn’t pull herself away from the questions Clarissa and Sasha’s deaths had raised. Now she had it in her head that the hunting blind held an answer to some of those questions. She pushed down the pedal and sped along the old highway, turning off onto a side road and then down the lane to Zeke’s cabin. The pickup bumped along and she hoped she wouldn’t rip the undercarriage.

  The blind was truly a ramshackle affair, and if it had been on her own property she would probably have pulled it down before someone climbed up and fell through the floor. But as it was, she was more curious than circumspect at this moment.

  She circled the tree it was built in. Rusted nails held together the well-weathered boards, even those that had split over the years. She tugged on the rungs nailed into the tree. The first one came apart in her hand. The second one slewed to the side and split in two. She didn’t bother testing the third one. Instead, she walked back to her pickup and pulled a ladder from the back, which she propped up against the tree, wedging the top against the trunk and floorboards above. As she looked up at the blind, she knew this could turn out to be a great idea or a truly dumb one.

  At the top of the ladder she pressed her palm flat against what looked like a trapdoor. With effort, she pushed until it gave way and rose up; then it fell back, twisting to the side and hanging over the floor. The hinges were too rusted to hold the trap in place on one end, but not so rusted that the whole thing came apart. She gripped the floorboards and levered herself up one more rung and into the blind, her shoulders now above the flooring. The place smelled musty, of animal feces and rotting leaves.

  In a far corner was the usual sign of a human-abandoned property, an old piece of cloth taken over by rodents, probably squirrels, and used as a nest. The other corner housed a pile of rusty old beer cans. Propped up behind them was a rusty tin tray advertising Coke in glass bottles, a desirable antique even in its current state. The window to the blind was still propped open, which was odd, now that she thought about it. It should have collapsed years ago.

  More curious than sensible, Felicity worked her way fully into the blind, making sure to straddle the boards that looked almost rotted through. She heard a board creak, and another sounded like it was ready to crack in two.

  A single branch above her served as a brace for part of the roof, and she grasped it with both hands, easing her weight on the floor as she worked her way closer to the window. She looked out through the opening.

  Once again she was struck by what being a mere twenty feet above ground level could reveal. The tree with its blind stood on a knoll she hadn’t considered much more than a little mound, but from here she could see far into the woods. With the trees still bare of leaves, she felt as if she could see for miles.

  But that was foolish. A hill high enough to be named stood between the blind and her farmhouse. And yet she had the sense of looking deep into a forest, of capturing the feeling that drew the early explorers and lured otherwise sensible men and women into climbing inhospitable mountains just to get to the top.

  She pulled out her cell and touched the compass app. The blind was oriented to the southeast. She would have thought a different direction would have been better, perhaps to the north or west, instead of a direction that looked just to the right of the cabin. Despite the blind’s location so close to the cabin, she was certain Zeke had built it, not only because of the age of the tin tray but also of the wood, which was pine, cut and aged like that in the cabin, the scars of the circular saw visible on both. The structure wasn’t old enough to predate the cabin. But perhaps by the time Zeke had built the blind, he was no longer hunting and didn’t care as much about orienting it. But that didn’t make sense. She doubted if he would really have given up practices he’d followed his entire life. She glanced down at the cabin, to the right.

  The blind, she realized, would have been Zeke’s real refuge. The cabin served for winter and blustery weather, but the blind was true to its name, a place to sit unknown and unreachable and yet able to see all. Here Zeke must have found everything he was looking for. Felicity rested her head against the rough bark, wrapped her arms around the branch, and thought about that. Here Zeke must have found everything he was looki
ng for.

  She heard the words in her head, and she knew they meant more than she at first understood. She’d stumbled on a truth she couldn’t fully grasp. She repeated the words. She could hear them pushing against her eyes, resting on her tongue. She had discovered something, even if she didn’t know exactly what.

  As soon as she got back to her farm, Felicity collected Shadow and drove to Sasha Glover’s piece of land. She let the dog out of the pickup to walk with her. Shadow followed along behind her until she left the path, then moved about ten and later twenty feet to her right, running parallel with her. Every now and then the dog stopped, sat down, and watched her. If she didn’t do something interesting, he stood and resumed his tracking among the leaves and saplings. She wished she’d brought him with her the morning of the snowfall. Perhaps he would have caught a scent and tracked it beyond the stone wall at Old Town Road.

  She walked among the hills and the gradually sinking mounds, stood at the edge of holes, careful to avoid undermining the walls, and looked for signs that anyone else had continued the search after Kyle Morgan’s death. She tramped onto her own land and followed the path as she remembered it from the day before. But today, she couldn’t tell if anyone had been on the property since she’d posted it.

  She headed uphill onto her own land. The woods were especially quiet here, and this would continue for a while. She’d called Lance several times since talking with Bettes in the cafe, leaving voice messages and sending texts about him leaving Mantell’s sawmill, but he still hadn’t replied and she guessed he was avoiding her. She had to stop him and whoever he was working with. She didn’t want to catch anyone red-handed because then the damage would be done. She had to find another way. If her suspicions were right, she had to act now.

  Felicity walked deeper into the trees, watching where she stepped, keeping an eye out for anyone else’s footprints or signs of passage. As she walked, the silence thickened, enveloping her like a blanket, shielding her from the rest of the world. She reached the center of the farm, an area never timbered or cleared or farmed to her knowledge. She tried to see what Old Zeke had seen perhaps over a hundred years ago when he was a young man working in this area, and certainly over fifty years ago when her father was a young man and Old Zeke knew he was well past his prime. She thought about Zeke, an old man with a dream, and her dad, a young man with a future.

  As she looked around, Felicity thought the stand of trees wasn’t particularly attractive. Most of the trees seemed to be hemlock and beech, with a few sugar maples, yellow birch, and oak mixed in. She noted a chestnut and a few white pine. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t as thick as she sometimes found. But it had mattered. She looked again.

  At moments like this she ached to have her parents back again, young and vital, to learn from them all she knew they could still teach. She knew she couldn’t ask her dad because his series of strokes had left him vulnerable and suspicious—his fears rose up before his reason could guide him. She’d learn nothing and be trapped for days in his distress. But perhaps she didn’t have to talk to him, to probe for the past and his long-forgotten dreams.

  The sun filtered through the trees, warming the back of her neck. Straight ahead, well beyond her sight, lay the path Lance planned to take for timbering. He would be coming straight into her property from the other side, and straight on down toward Sasha Glover’s property. A breeze swept through the trees, the susurration whispering as it went past her, the leaves at her feet turning restless. She had to stop him no matter what.

  Twenty-Five

  Felicity opened the door to her pickup and motioned Shadow to hop in. He sat on the passenger seat watching her punch in numbers in her cell. The phone rang but Lance didn’t pick up. She left a voice message and sent a text, once again, and then sat there wondering what else she could do. She felt enormous frustration, but at least now she understood better what was going on. She looked back through Sasha’s plot at the trees getting ready to leaf out. If Lance was gambling hundreds of dollars a week, he had to get more money out of his timbering. At least that part of her life was beginning to make sense. But Bettes had told her something else equally important.

  She recalled Bettes’s comment that Marilyn’s client had rented a car from Hogie.

  Hogie Dubois was an accommodating guy, well into his sixties, who liked to buy and rent cars he could take care of himself. His weekly rental fees were low, and if the car broke down, he showed up and fixed it in your driveway. His business was just right for people who couldn’t afford to buy or lease a car but couldn’t live without one. In this area, that was just about everyone. He had a variety of cars, including a few that gave a sheen to a man or woman who needed to look smart and prosperous, someone to do business with. He charged extra for those.

  Hogie lived in a small cottage across the river from Flat Road Automotive, where he could see his business in the garage parking lot and call out if a customer showed up. He still had to drive through town to cross the bridge to get to Flat Road, but he could keep an eye on everything when he was at home. Felicity parked in front of his house and waited until a bright yellow Chevy with well-cared-for chrome pulled up and parked. Hogie climbed out and took the steps to his front door. Felicity ran up the path behind him. He turned around and looked her over.

  “What’s got you in a twist?”

  She told him what she wanted to know.

  “I can’t tell you that.” He had a canvas sack hanging off his shoulder with oddly wrapped shapes sticking out. Hogie believed down to his toenails that he’d make it big by buying and trading stuff, and so far he’d managed not to lose his life savings. But that was about it.

  “Just the name of the man who rented the car.” Felicity had come to suspect that Frank Gentile was an alias, and Hogie could confirm that. The more she thought about it, the more she felt the man she’d seen in the Town Hall window was unlikely to be the helmeted teacher on the Internet.

  “Can’t do that.” He took a step back. His thick gray hair curled above the collar of his heavy quilted jacket, which hung open over a blue chamois shirt. He wore jeans with a wide brown leather belt. “Privacy issues.”

  Felicity wanted to comment on that but thought better of it. In West Woodbury, she sometimes thought, there was no such thing as privacy. “All right, what can you tell me?”

  “Ah, Felicity, you make it so hard.” He took a half turn, shifting the strap on his shoulder. Then, in a sudden move, he swung back to face her and gave her the name of a company.

  “That sounds familiar. What else can you tell me? Anything. It’s important, Hogie.”

  “It always is with you. Well, the man pays cash. How’s that?” He ran his hands through his hair, which he wore combed straight back.

  “That it? Nothing more?”

  “Why would I ask a lot of questions? It’s not like he’s a bank robber looking for a getaway car. You know, Felicity, you’ve been getting strange since your dad went into the home.”

  “He’s offering big bucks, Hogie, to the farmers around here for land. If he’s so rich, and Marilyn Kvorak says he is, then why is he renting a car from you?”

  “You think there’s something wrong with my cars?”

  But Felicity had gotten what she wanted.

  Later that evening she typed in the name Hogie had given her, hit return, and waited. And there it was. A single mention of Treeline Properties listed in several generic sites for tracking individuals or businesses, with no guarantee that any one of them had any more information than name and address. This was a company that didn’t want to be known.

  But she didn’t need anything more.

  Frank Gentile, or whoever he was, worked for the company that had bought Zeke Bodrun’s cabin, and he was also now trying to buy farmland in West Woodbury. That wasn’t illegal, as Kevin would quickly point out, but it was odd. The spit of land he’d bought was next to worthle
ss except as a wood lot or a blind for hunters. There wasn’t enough acreage for a private home, and the land around it was too restricted, unless the buyer was willing to pay the back taxes on land taken out of Chapter 61, the law regulating farmland and tax relief for farmers.

  But that piece of land, with its cabin, was valuable to both Ezekial Bodrun and Frank Gentile. So what did it contain? Felicity understood what it had meant to Old Zeke, and she’d come to believe that Kyle Morgan was nothing more than someone caught up in treasure fever, thinking Sasha’s land was the valuable piece, and Lance looked to be sinking deeper into debt and desperation. But how did the unknown Frank fit in? Had he been using every one of them?

  Felicity spent a good portion of her evening ignoring Shadow and Miss Anthropy, to their chagrin, uniting them in disdain for their human as she hunched over her computer. She recalled as much as she could of Zenia Callahan’s descriptions of her father’s travels and her mother’s comments. She searched through old commentaries on life in West Woodbury, including farmers who had given up and moved away in search of better land. She read about the timbering business in New England, the rise and demise of small farms, the mechanization of farming, and the expansion of the Rust Belt. By the time her old clock twanged its way to eleven thirty and the electricity flickered in a gust of wind, she was ready to confront Franklin M. Gentile with what she knew. He would either confirm her suspicions or slam the door in her face.

  Twenty-Six

  Early on Friday morning, Felicity tossed a New England road atlas into her pickup, a picnic lunch, and photographs of Clarissa and Sasha she’d taken off the internet from online obituaries. She figured she had a four-and-a-half hour drive ahead of her, a straight shot up I-95 to Bangor, Maine, to the school where the retired Franklin M. Gentile now worked as a tutor. She changed the radio station half a dozen times, too restless to listen to anything for very long. When she reached a small private high school, a secretary buzzed her in and a security guard escorted her to the office. Another secretary led her down to Mr. Gentile’s office.